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Dear Mr. President

Arjen van Veelen

24 maart 2014

Dear Mr. President, Please accept my sincere apologies for my poor English. It has been a while since I last practiced. My prime minister Mark Rutte always says: „In Nederland spreken we Nederlands.” But I guess these days he will see it through the fingers – he’s a good guy, Mark.

When you were elected, President Obama, I felt proud. Here in Holland we love black people, too, you know. For example, each year in December we even have a special festival to celebrate black people. That’s when Black Pete arrives to bring us presents.

I feel ashamed to admit that the last few years, some racist idiots are trying to kick Black Pete out. Only because he is black! Can you imagine it, Mr. President!? But they didn’t succeed. Thanks to Mark. He always says: „Black Pete is Black, otherwise, his name wouldn’t be Black Pete.” I told you Mark is a good guy!

We all love black people – of course we do. They have been bringing us presents for centuries. Have you seen the canals in Amsterdam? The old houses where our merchants used to live? All that glory would never exist without black people! We brought them from Africa to America, so they could bring us presents, and meanwhile become presidents!

We love all foreigners, Mr. President. We even build special hotels for refugees, where they can play table tennis for free before we buy them a ticket back home.

Please bring my greetings to president Xi. Tell him we love the Chinese people, too. Tell him to try number 39 with lice. It’s a pity Mr. Putin is not here. We really love the Russians. Our king even shared a Heineken beer with Mr. Putin! Don’t forget to make a selfie when you do the Heineken Experience.

We do like white people too, of course. Did you see the Nachtwacht? Old white men with important jobs – that’s the way we like.

We love the Jews. We even have two musicals about how we defeated the Nazi’s and saved all the Jews! Even Geert Wilders, one of our most popular leaders, loves the Jews. Some people say he is Hitler, but that makes no sense; if Wilders was Hitler, then the Dutch would be the German people, and we don’t like the Germans. They stole our bikes!

Moroccans steal our bikes, too, sometimes. But there are good Moroccans and bad Moroccans. The bad ones steal your bike; the good one is called Ali B. Please never mention the word ‘Moroccan’, without mentioning the stealing of the bikes. Even the progressive people do this; it is just a matter of cultural sensitivity.

We have our problems too, you know. We live deep below the sea level. That’s why we are always afraid of tsunami’s.

Don’t be afraid of the Moroccans, though, you will not meet them. We live our lives separately. Different neighborhoods. Different jobs. We call it ‘gezelligheid’, but maybe I should say ‘apartheid’ – I am really sorry, Mr. President, some things can only be explained als je Nederlands spreekt.